Government for making separate wing in each Ministry to check graft

New Delhi: In order to check corruption, the Centre on Friday suggested setting up of an exclusive and independent vigilance wing in each Ministry and central department.

"It should be ensured that that the administration and vigilance wing are exclusively separate from each other in each ministry or department," the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) said in an order.

Citing an instruction issued by the CVC, it said vigilance functionaries should not be a party to processing and decision-making processes or in other similar administrative transactions of such sensitive nature.

"Secretary of the Ministry or department should review the pending disciplinary proceeding cases and sanction of prosecution cases each month like monitoring of VIP references or RTI cases," it said in a fresh set of guidelines.

The Centre's directive came following a recommendation made by the Group of Ministers (GoM) on Corruption.

Information was collected from all central departments to asses the work load relating to vigilance administration and the adequacy of the present set-up to handle such volume of vigilance-related work in various ministries.

"From the inputs received from the ministries or departments, it has been observed that in some ministries or departments the numbers of complaints or disciplinary proceedings cases are very high...

"Therefore, each ministry or department should conduct an Staff Inspection Unit study of its vigilance division so that officers or staff may be posted as per requirement vis-à-vis volume of work," it said.

The DoPT also found that most of the ministries have not yet set-up their monitoring cells to review and monitor progress of all pending disciplinary inquiries on a day-to-day basis.

"All ministries or departments may send an action taken report on setting up of a monitoring cell, to this department within a month from the receipt of these guidelines," it said, adding that all the departments are requested to follow the guidelines in letter and spirit to strengthen their vigilance set-up.